First U.S. Beatles Concert To Be Shown On Big Screen

Related Tags:

Two days after their historic performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles performed their first U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum. Cheap seats went for $2, with the better ones commanding $4. Over 8,000 fans packed into the venue by the time the band took the stage to perform “Roll Over Beethoven.”

Concerts were banned at the facility after a riot broke out during a performance by The Temptations a few years later, and today, the Coliseum is gone, replaced by an indoor parking lot.
Footage of the entire concert was recently found. You’ll be able to see every song in The Beatles: The Lost Concert. The film is set to premiere in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theater May 4, and will be screened at over 400 theaters nationwide May 17 and May 22.

Beatles historian and host of “Breakfast With The Beatles” on Boston’s WZLX, ChaChi Loprete has seen the footage, saying “The early stages of Beatlemania are evident in every frame. Generations will view it, analyze it, comment on it and all will reach the conclusion that a moment like this will never be repeated.”

Among those interviewed in “The Lost Concert” are Chuck Berry, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, The Strokes, and fans who were actually there that night February 11, 1964.

Classic rock author and WZLX host Carter Alan says this is an important piece of music history: “The first Beatles tour was just a short promotional visit of days, so this is a snapshot as valuable as Elvis’s ’68 ‘black leather’ comeback special or James Brown at the Apollo.”